Saturday, November 1, 2014

I have a report due this Friday, I have a conference abstract due on Thursday, and I've been neglecting my Venus blog. Oh, I've also floated the idea with two colleagues of submitting some work we did for publication, and that has sat with no action now for a couple of months.

What time is it? It's Writing Time. And at just the perfect moment, it also is the first day of Academic Writing Month 2014! I signed up, of course, because I'd rather have a little fun tweeting and blogging about writing, instead of ACTUALLY WRITING.

Okay, I've had my bit of fun, so I better get to it. Wait-- I need a plan! I guess I can avoid real writing for a few more minutes by jotting down a few notes about how I might succeed.

First Things First

The 5-page report on Computing and Communications for my PicoSat Design course is a major part of my grade, and the deadline (this coming Friday) is pretty much carved in stone... so this needs to happen first.

Of course, the conference abstract is due even sooner, so IF it is going to happen, it needs to happen soon. I'll need some input from other members of the team at UND.

The paper on asteroid mission alternatives already exists, but needs to be improved substantially before it is fit for publication submittal. There are a number of steps to this, but the first is incorporating several comments from our professor. This is the best candidate for AcWriMo motivation, because no one is making me do it! If it doesn't get done, no harm done. But if I can push it forward, I will never regret it. Nevertheless, I can't even think about it until the other two items are written.